


Nights Bright Days

by miladyshakespeare



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Book/TV Hybrid, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 21:46:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19484665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miladyshakespeare/pseuds/miladyshakespeare
Summary: "On the count of sixty-one, Crowley let go of Aziraphale’s hand and sat up. Looking around the room, he wondered if the universe had taken the opportunity to sneak past his guard and adjust while he slept."Whenever he's with Aziraphale, Crowley knows he only ever says close to what he wants. Until he suggests Aziraphale stay with him after the world doesn't end. As it turns out, this does not leave the universe the way it was.





	Nights Bright Days

> _And darkly bright are bright in dark directed;_
> 
> _Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,_
> 
> _How would thy shadow's form form happy show_
> 
> _To the clear day with thy much clearer light,_
> 
> _When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so?_
> 
> from Sonnet 43, W. Shakespeare

Aziraphale had not let go of Crowley’s hand.   
They walked from the airfield, down the village main street, all the way to the only bus stop in Tadfield. Crowley felt Aziraphale’s fingers flex against his own as they sat on the bench, waiting. It was more quiet than the night of almost-armageddon should have any right to be, and Crowley was tired. As soon as they boarded the bus he leaned his head against the cool glass window and Aziraphale pulled both their hands into his lap as he was wont to sit. The motor rumbled beneath them as the bus serpentined its way toward London. Crowley watched orange streetlights pass at a steady beat. Aziraphale was leaning against his side. He didn’t close his eyes. It felt to him as if he dared leave this moment unguarded, the universe might shift and adjust to the incorrect belief that this was how the two of them always were.   
“We’ve done quite enough for today, my dear boy,” Aziraphale said. He was quieter than most nights, quiet like Crowley had only heard him after a great disaster.   
The demon Crowley felt something akin to relief, but chose to say nothing. He didn’t like the fact that he was, for once, happy to let Aziraphale be right.

By the time they made it to Crowley’s flat, Aziraphale felt like an extension. There was no further mention of how they couldn’t stop at the bookstore and furthermore nothing about how seldom Aziraphale had been to Crowley’s flat and of how earlier that day a miracle had been required to get melted demon out of the carpet. As they passed them, Aziraphale reached out to brush his free hand gently against the leaves of several plants.   
“Some of those will burn you,” Crowley said, but the words lacked sharpness and the angel appeared to pay them no mind for it. Besides, any of Crowley’s plants would know that it was best not to hurt Aziraphale. 

Crowley took Aziraphale with him to the bedroom, feeling as if it would be stranger to ask than to do. They’d known each other for millennia and he had never seen the angel this worn. Beneath his tired blue eyes there was a smudge of ash and Crowley  
wanted, suddenly and desperately, to wipe it off with his thumb. Instead, he kicked the door shut as to not see the statue in the nook opposite and opted for throwing himself on the bed.   
“You won’t sleep well like that, my dear,” Aziraphale said after a long moment of quiet.   
As his hands settled on Crowley’s shoulders, Crowley buried his face in the duvet. He moved along with it anyway, too tired, too heavy-limbed not to be pliant as Aziraphale pulled his jacket off. Crowley listened, face still in comfortable darkness, to Aziraphale’s steps around the room, to the click of the light switch, to the rustle of the bed as the mattress dipped beside him. It was a peculiar thing to be aware of, another being sharing his space, and Crowley had never allowed anyone else in this bedroom, let alone in his bed.   
“Goodnight, Crowley,” Aziraphale said. He had turned toward him.   
“Goodnight, angel,” Crowley replied, much softer than he wanted. He hoped that it was less clear when muffled by eiderdown. 

* * *

By late morning, Aziraphale’s fingers were tangled with his own again. Their hands were resting between them, as if they had never let go at all the night before. As if they belonged there, on top of Crowley’s silk sheets. ‘Shit,’ Crowley thought.   
In the corner of his eye, he saw Aziraphale’s pale lashes flicker. A minute, he’d give himself a minute. Looking at the angle of Aziraphale’s wrist, at the way his fingers bent just so to press into Crowley’s palm. On the count of sixty-one, Crowley let go of Aziraphale’s hand and sat up. Looking around the room, he wondered if the universe had taken the opportunity to sneak past his guard and adjust while he slept. He reached down and pinched Aziraphale’s shoulder.   
“Rise and shine, angel,” he said loudly, watching as Aziraphale made a valiant effort to pretend to be just waking. Crowley didn’t attempt to figure out how long Aziraphale had been awake as they were. They had business to attend to. 

Aziraphale’s human form felt strange on Crowley’s being. It wasn’t uncomfortable or wrong, just different. In this shape he became much more aware of certain things, like his hands and the nape of his neck where the shirt collar brushed as he moved.   
“Peculiar,” Aziraphale said, having studied Crowley for an uncomfortably long time.   
“For some reason I thought I’d feel nicer,” Crowley said. “I’ll miracle my way to the shop. That way my powers are here, where I’m supposed to be.”  
“Of course,” Aziraphale said.   
Crowley wanted to do something about his friend’s lost expression, about the way he looked about the flat and tugged uncomfortably at the sleeves of his jacket. He could think of many things, but he didn’t think that any of them were suited to the task at hand. Perhaps he waited too long for the right idea to present itself, because Aziraphale said his name and grabbed his wrist. Crowley’s attempt to not look down at the gesture failed.   
“Do be safe,” Aziraphale said.   
Crowley’s chest felt hollow and he grinned in a way that didn’t fit his current mouth. There was a restless twitch in his fingers. “Catch you later, angel,” he said, and vanished himself to Soho. 

Later, on his way back from heaven, coat still smelling like hellfire, he wondered at last how long Aziraphale had been awake while he slept. How long had their hands been entwined while Aziraphale chose to stay? Who had reached out for the other?  
He had a meeting to make, but he caught a cab to Savile Row anyway. It just so happened that a time had been cleared up for a fitting and he just happened to desperately need a new coat.   
The fabric was a deep shade of sand, soft to the touch and just warm enough for someone hot blooded in the fall. Crowley didn’t mention the way Aziraphale kept running his palms over it. In response, Aziraphale didn’t point out that he could have just miracled the stench out of the old coat.

Some things between the two didn’t need to be said out loud. Such as the fact that they’d spend the night celebrating the resurrection of Aziraphale’s bookshop. Crowley looked on, feet propped up on a stool, as Aziraphale perused the shop with his wineglass in hand, carefully inspecting the shelves for changes and additions.   
  
“I’ve been meaning to ask, my dear -” Aziraphale scrunched up his nose in a way that Crowley would think of as endearing had he not been certain that the word was Aziraphale’s invention and therefore making Crowley averse to it. “What _do_ I smell like?”   
Crowley smiled. He’d been waiting for Aziraphale for just as long as the angel had been meaning to ask it. He took a moment while humming to himself, buying time as he gazed upon the state of the wine bottles on the coffee table. While he had been prepared, he wasn’t sure how many half truths and lies he had left in him the day after the world didn’t end. Finally, he opened his mouth. From the corner of his eye, he saw Aziraphale waiting, patiently as ever. The angel looked uncharacteristically relaxed, toe against the ground, leaning his side on a shelf.  
“A dry champagne under the open sky-” Crowley said slowly, pointedly looking deep into his glass. “Like the warmth of sunlight, like a summer evening walking out of the city and into the countryside. Like hope.”

A long silence settled between them, Crowley emptied his glass and refilled it before getting to his feet and filling up Aziraphale’s as well. Aziraphale’s expression was one Crowley already had replicated in his mind in minute detail. The same one he’d had when Crowley said he could stay in the flat. The same one he’d had in a church in the forties, the same one he had every time Crowley appeared with a bottle of champagne at a party where Aziraphale wished for it. ‘Tender,’ Crowley thought, and his mind unhelpfully supplied ‘To kiss the tender inward of thy hand.’  
“I don’t want to hear it,” Crowley said, taking one long swig of his wine as he watched Aziraphale’s face twist into one of hurt and then polite resolve. If only Crowley knew what to make of the things he could so easily read, things might have been different.   
“But you’ll still stay and drink with me?” Aziraphale asked.   
Crowley grinned and nodded, already heading toward the back room where Aziraphale kept his finer vintages. “To the bookshop and to the world still going, angel.” 

Neither of the two would care to admit that in spite of the success of the day, they were actively avoiding throwing miracles around. Instead they both pretended that this is what they preferred, getting royally drunk with no aid from powers that be to sober up again. Instead the night found them stretched out on Aziraphale’s couch, Crowley’s legs draped across Aziraphale’s lap, head tipped back, eyes closed behind his sunglasses.   
Time passed strangely in the dark, when fuzzy from fine port and with a warm body against his own. Somewhere in that space, Aziraphale said his name. There was something in his voice that made Crowley’s insides itch as if they were covered with something dry.   
He didn’t respond. 

Crowley woke two days later, with Aziraphales arm rested over his ribcage and very glad that he didn’t really need to breathe, or the effort would have been shaky at best.   
“Aziraphale,” he said, although he had not intended to. His voice was gravelly from sleep and his mouth felt fuzzy.   
Aziraphale didn’t even stir. Served him right anyway, Crowley thought. He was too comfortable in this position and he needed every reason he could to leave. With some effort, he undraped Aziraphale from him and rolled ungracefully from the couch onto the floor. His every bone felt crooked, his every muscle sore, but he’d deal with that later, when he got back to the flat.   
“I’m going to go home, get changed, sort out my carpet,” he said to Aziraphale’s resting form and for good measure he got out pen and paper and wrote the same thing on a note. He’d never considered himself good at any form of closeness, but he knew that Aziraphale deserved better than the best he could do. He picked up as many glasses and bottles as he could and carried them up to the kitchen, then left via the fire escape. 

The plants had been slacking off and Crowley told them in no uncertain terms that just because the world didn’t end, they could not expect him to give them a break. In fact, the rest of time should be the ideal motivation to grow sturdier. They had many decades (or centuries, even, if Crowley got his way) to live and he couldn’t have them get into bad habits now.   
After dealing appropriately with the plants, he called and stressed out a handful of firms about re-carpeting. Even if he had removed the look and smell of it by miracle, he’d never forget it was there. The colour alone would be enough to remind him of demonic demise for centuries to come.   
In the bedroom, Aziraphale had forgotten a cardigan, an intricate knit in multiple shades of brown that lay neatly folded at the bench at the foot end of the bed. Maybe it was time to rip everything out and redecorate the place, Crowley thought. 

In six millennia, the demon Crowley had seldom felt lonely, but as he sat by his desk that night, some reality show on the TV, idly turning the plant-mister in his hand, he found no other words to describe it. There was something, in the world and Crowley’s place in it still being intact, that didn’t add up with what he was currently doing. The universe felt displeased, Crowley would know, he helped create it after all. Whatever ineffable plan or lack thereof that there was, this wasn’t how the rest of time was supposed to be.   
Before he could think better of it, because he was correct in assuming that he could, in fact, think better of it, he left the flat behind. The Bentley welcomed him with open arms when he put the key in the ignition. Aziraphale hadn’t driven it, he knew this. Aziraphale had wanted Crowley to be the first one to drive his car come back to reality.   
The roads, knowing what was best, shifted on the way to Soho, traffic lights turned green and a few unfortunate motorists found themselves suddenly on the M25.

* * *

”Aziraphale,” Crowley said. He wasn’t particularly proud of the tone he had when he stepped into the shop through the front door that knew best to always open for him, CLOSED sign or no. At least he hadn’t shouted.   
Aziraphale appeared on the stairs, he was wearing a dark blue velvet robe and took Crowley in with deep, quizzical eyes.   
“I thought that was you,” he said softly, fondly. His slippers made no sound as he walked across the shop floor to Crowley by the door Their toes nearly brushed. Crowley took off his sunglasses.   
”I lost you,” he said, but it wasn’t what he had meant to say. He meant: there is no other place for me than with you. He meant: please don’t ask me to leave. He meant: I love you.  
The angel Aziraphale at least understood some of this. He reached down and interlaced their fingers with such little hesitation that Crowley was struck with the ridiculous idea that Aziraphale might lift it to his lips and kiss his knuckles. This didn’t happen, but Crowley bit his tongue all the same.   
Come on then, Aziraphale’s eyes said as he pulled Crowley with him back up the stairs. The lights of the shop faded behind them. Crowley couldn’t help it, the warm and light feeling spreading in his chest, running through his arms, making the hairs on his neck stand on end. 

It was different, going to bed not dead tired or not going to bed at all. Crowley was struck, as he got under the covers, by the fact that Aziraphale didn’t sleep much usually. Still, the angel was fussing about in his frustratingly proper way, placing slippers in the closet, putting the robe on a hanger in an approximation of a routine. Crowley opened his mouth to apologize for having put his shoes under the bed, but Aziraphale clicked his tongue to quiet him before he got any of the words out.   
Crowley watched as Aziraphale propped a pillow up against the headboard and picked up a book from the nightstand. The book had no bookmark and the cover lacked a printed title.   
“You don’t have to-” Crowley started to say. Then sighed and turned onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “I take it you still don’t sleep much, then.”   
“Never did get into the habit,” Aziraphale said. “Although with the whole world not ending among other things, I’ve found it easier these past few days.”  
This close, Crowley could hear the intake of breath that foreshadowed something unsaid at the end of Aziraphale’s sentence, but nothing came of it. There was the soft rustle of Aziraphle turning pages in his book. One, and then another. ‘Among other things’, Crowley thought.  
“What do you think we should do now?” he asked. Under the covers, he pressed his palms against his sides.   
“We.” Aziraphale echoed quietly.   
Crowley bit down on his cheek. “I meant- Of coursse I-”   
He met Aziraphale’s eye for a fraction of a moment and saw it, suspended between them, Aziraphale’s full understanding this time. Even without his heavenly glow, the angel was illuminating dark corners in which Crowley had tucked things away. Aziraphale tugged a ribbon into the pages of the book and closed it.   
”You’ve been thinking of it as our side for a very long time. You’ve been thinking of us, of ours,” he said.   
Crowley looked away. The silence that followed was Aziraphale making the mistake of trying to wait him out.   
”Thissss wasss a bad idea,” Crowley said at last, kicking the covers off and climbing out of bed before he changed his mind. He grabbed at his shoes and made his way over to where he’d hung his jacket on the door. 

”Crowley,” Aziraphale said. ”Come back to bed.”  
Crowley grew still and cold. His skin felt as if something was twisting and rebelling underneath it. It must have been visible on his face, because Aziraphale’s expression fell and his cheeks reddened when he turned his gaze away. Crowley wanted to crawl into bed from the foot end, fit himself against Aziraphale and trace his jaw with his fingertips. But he couldn’t, so he turned to pacing.  
“I think it’s time we address this matter,” Aziraphale said. His matter-of-fact tone made Crowley groan in response.   
“Like you haven’t avoided it for yearss!”   
“I have, but I must admit that I didn’t- I thought-” Aziraphale sighed. “You care for me,” he said.   
Crowley scoffed at the understatement. “Just the other day you said you didn’t like me,” he said. It wasn’t what he had intended to say. There was a chill settling deep in his throat.   
“The world was ending! Besides, you can tell when I’m lying anyway, you always could.”  
When Crowley glanced over at the bed, he saw that Aziraphale had put his book down on the nightstand.   
“I’m not made for this, Aziraphale! The stuff I’m made of issss-”   
“The same as mine, my dear.” Aziraphale said.   
His tone was sharper than Crowley had heard it ever directed at himself, but he couldn’t stop. If Aziraphale wanted to talk, he’d hear Crowley out, whether he wanted or not. “You know that’ss not true. I’m sssomething elssse now. Evil lingerss where I’ve been near you.”   
“Don’t listen to the angels.”   
“You _are_ an angel, _angel_ ,” Crowley snapped.   
“The others, then. Crowley, it’s not like that for me. Your presence is a surge of energy, the feeling you leave behind, to me it smells like-”   
“Like sulphur and brimstone.” Crowley was grumbling, burying his hands deep in his pockets.  
“Oh hush, my dear boy, let me finish.” Aziraphale shook his head. “You smell like cinnamon toast, like yellow grass, the whiff of a freshly opened barrel of a good scotch. You smell like safety.” He paused, but not long enough for Crowley to interrupt again. “You- it’s what I think I smell when I wrap my wings around myself”   
  
At that moment, Crowley was very glad that he was standing near the bed again because he needed something sturdy to hold onto. Just the idea was reassuring, even if only one thing might be able to steady him enough for this. “Aziraphale -”  
“Crowley, please, I’m trying to tell you something.”   
Crowley nodded in defeat. “No, I know. I know.”   
“The world should have ended. Yet here we are,” Aziraphale said.  
Crowley knew what he meant. In spite of the of the way his mind was racing, spiraling out of control, he knew.  
“Alright,” Crowley said, even though it wasn’t.   
“Crowley, my dear,” Aziraphale said.   
Perhaps it was in the light of the conversation. Of millennia’s worth of history unfolding within Crowley. Of doubts resurfacing and resolving themselves and sometimes growing anew within moments.   
“Don’t-” he said, and meant the opposite.  
Aziraphale, who knew, because that’s the beauty of letting the dams open on what needs to be spoken, moved across the bed. The sheets rustled beneath him. His hands were so warm on Crowley’s wrists.   
“Dearest. Listen to yourself. It’s been too long.”   
Crowley said nothing, but he let Aziraphale turn their hands so that they were entwined.  
“Six thousand years, my dear. Let’s just settle that we have both been fools. But let’s stop now.”   
“Are you ssure that’ss what you want, angel?”  
Aziraphale lifted their hands, resting them at the sides of Crowley’s jaw. He leaned in, his nose brushing against Crowley’s, his breath caressing Crowley’s lips.  
“I’m sure that you are all I want. Damn the rest,” he said. 

Crowley found himself at the complete lack of response that only strikes a creature who has played out a conversation of this nature in his head over many occasions and several millennia. He wanted to say finally, wanted to state that it never went smoothly in his mind, wanted to say please and thank you, he wanted to respond in equal measure. But he was silent, eyes half-closed, focused on the sensation of the bridge of Aziraphale’s nose being close enough to press against his own. He thought for several long moments of how Aziraphale was taller than usual, kneeling on top of the bed. His soft curls fell down to caress Crowley’s forehead, his thumbs were making gentle circles just under Crowley’s jaw.   
Kissing was such a human notion, Crowley thought, but standing there, his forehead pressed to Aziraphale’s, he thought that he understood needing something closer. In all ways except the physical Aziraphale had already always been closer and closer still, closer than Crowley would ever let any other being.  
“I should like to kiss you,” Aziraphale said, lips brushing Crowley’s cheekbone. It sounded as if he replied to Crowley’s thoughts. “I’ve wanted to for a very, very long time.”   
Perhaps that was just how they understood each other.   
“Venice,” Aziraphale answered Crowley’s unasked question. “1704, during the carnival. You wore angel’s wings.”   
  
Crowley wished at that moment that he could bottle the tone in Aziraphale’s voice. The breathlessness of it. Centuries had passed between then and today. Crowley looked up and searched Aziraphale’s gaze until he caught it. Then, slowly, because for once Crowley did not want to be first, he nodded. He nodded and Aziraphale leaned in and kissed him with such tenderness that it nearly hurt. Aziraphale’s hands came to rest at the back of Crowley’s neck and Crowley rested his fingertips along the lines of Aziraphale’s shoulder blades. Like this, he could feel the soft feathers that were there but not at once. When Aziraphale shuddered, Crowley felt it in his core.   
“Since before then,” Crowley said, voice gravelly, against Aziraphale’s chin. “I don’t even know how or where.”   
“I know,” Aziraphale said, his nose brushing against Crowley’s, his lips searching. “Ask me again,” he whispered.   
“What do you think we should do now?” Crowley idly caressed the wings that were and weren’t as he spoke. The night felt brighter than heaven.   
“This. Holding on, my dear, forever.” 

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Half of my gratitude to Rose, for giving this a twice-over before anyone else got to read. And the rest to the other Ineffable wife, without whom, this fic would not have been.


End file.
